Reptile & Amphibian Forums

my tank has gotten fungus knats.is my only option to start all over?i really hate to do that.im looking to hear from anyone that has gotten them and if they were able to get rid of them.basically any fungus knat stories.just as i noticed the knats,my vivarium began getting like a spider web looking cover over all the moss on the ground.i imagine its fungus(dont think i have a spider in there and it covers almost the whole tank.is this just a coincidence or is this the fungus that is spread my the knats? i want them to go away but i dont want my vivarium to go away as well.help!!!!

Any new humid vivarium will grow lot of fungi at first, and perhaps harbor the attendant fungus gnats that feed from this. Both are harmless, and actually a part of the biological process you want to set up for a healthy dart frog vivarium. Just wipe the webby stuff off the glass sides you use for viewing, and your dart frogs will gobble up the fungus gnats. Things will change with time, but everything that crops up is not some kind of pathogen. In fact, most anything you see with the naked eye, probably isn't.
-----
Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

4 D. auratus blue
5 D. galactonotus pumpkin orange splash back
5 D. imitator
6 D. leucomelas
4 D. pumilio Bastimentos
4 D. fantasticus
4 P. terribilis
4 D. reticulatus
4 D. castaneoticus
2 D. azureus
4 P vittatus

thanks slaton,i was more concerned for my plants than for my frogs.i was worried the fungus will harm my plants and i hear of gardeners and greenhouses trying all sorts of products to rid their plants of fungus gnats so i thought they may destroy my plants.i hear almost all new vivariums grow tons of mold,but after a couple weeks,it rarly comes back.what is it thats eating/keeping the mold from developing after a couple weeks?

That's a good question few people think to ask. I think the fungal forms we see at first are a stage of the fungus that is visibly growing on organic material that is in an early stage of being broken down. Many fungi are dimorphic and we actually see only the visible sporulating stages of some or spreading mycelium. This stage probably lasts only a long as the media supports it and before competition such as algae, soil bacteria, etc. take over. It probably still remains either in microscopic form or as one of the inactive spore forms. A very common phenomenon is the growth of a web-like mycelia on the glass in newer tanks. As you wipe down the inside of the glass over time, you may notice that this is replaced by a greenish algae. Actually few fungi are pathogenic to living tissue and those that are are usually relatively specific for a particular disease. Many fungi can be opportunistic pathogens and invade debilitated or already diseased plants or animals, but as long as the conditions in your vivarium are suitable to the plants growing there (i.e. appropriate heat, humdity, water saturation, etc.) what you see isn't harmful.

We began to see a lot of weird fungal infections in humans with the advent of AIDS and with the widespread use of immunosuppressant therapy for transplant surgeries. Ordinarily bengign fungi became opportunistic pathogens in many of these people. I think one of the most memorable was in a heart valve replacement that a mycologist presented at one of the seminars I attended some years ago. The patient of course was on immunosuppressants so the new valve wouldn't be rejected. A few weeks later there were some obvious problems and the heart had to be opened up again, where the surgeons found an inkcap mushroom actually growing at the surgery site. So just about anything is possible under different circumstances. Fortunately, we are not dealing with anything like this in our attempts at biologically balanced vivariums.
-----
Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

4 D. auratus blue
5 D. galactonotus pumpkin orange splash back
5 D. imitator
6 D. leucomelas
4 D. pumilio Bastimentos
4 D. fantasticus
4 P. terribilis
4 D. reticulatus
4 D. castaneoticus
2 D. azureus
4 P vittatus